Topi has 100,000 hits on YouTube

I spent a long debating whether to put Topi online, but I'm glad I did. Despite a slow start, this week the film crossed 100,000 views, largely due to a viral response in India during September 2010. I'd never imagined that so many people would watch the film, and it's tremendously gratifying to have access to viewers' reactions, something that's not always possible at film festivals. One of my favorite comments was posted by mrvirenjn:

"This reminds me of what my grandfather once told me, when he had to migrate to India after partition.He actually missed the train he was supposed to be on.And people on that train were slaughtered before it could reach Amritsar.I could never have been born,and this video really made me feel for that boy when he lost his mother.Partition was terrible.This video just reminds us of the innate goodness in human beings.Of how it was and how it should have been."

In the stress of trying to finish the film and get it out there, it's easy to get lost in the intricacies of composition, animation, sound, festivals, etc and forget about the bigger picture. But hearing viewer responses such as the one above reminds me of why I chose to do this project, and why films that are actually about something are so vital.